Salaries Lag for Women Docs in Research

Female physician researchers make less money than their male counterparts, researchers found.

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A survey of mid-career physicians who had received NIH career-development grants 6 to 10 years earlier found that women made significantly less money than men.

Note that even adjusting for specialty, academic rank, leadership positions, publications, and research time, the women earned about $13,000 less than the men.

Female physician researchers make less money than their male counterparts, researchers found.

Among recipients of National Institutes of Health (NIH) career development awards, the average reported annual salary was $167,669 for women and $200,433 for men, according to Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues.

Even after adjustment for differences in specialty, academic rank, leadership positions, publications, and research time, there remained an absolute difference of $13,399 per year between the sexes (P=0.001), the researchers reported in the June 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study, which is consistent with a previous study of life sciences researchers, "provides evidence that gender differences in compensation continue to exist in academic medicine, even among a select cohort of physician researchers whose job content is far more similar than in cohorts previously studied, and even after controlling extensively for specialization and productivity," they wrote.

"Efforts to investigate the mechanisms by which these gender differences develop and ways to mitigate their effects merit continued attention, as these differences have not been eliminated through the passage of time alone and are difficult to justify."

In 2009 and 2010, Jagsi and colleagues mailed surveys to all 1,729 recipients of NIH K08 and K23 career development awards issued from 2000 through 2003 who were alive and had an identifiable mailing address. The response rate was 71%.

The current analysis was restricted to the 800 physicians (31% female) who had an MD, continued to practice at a U.S. academic institution, and reported their current salary. The mean age of the respondents was 45, and 76% were white.

Men were more likely than women to be married, have children, and hold administrative leadership positions. The male researchers also had a higher average number of publications and work hours.

Women were more likely to be in the lowest-paying specialties (those paying less than $175,000 per year) and less likely to be in the highest-paying specialties (more than $300,000 per year).

Accounting for those differences did not entirely eliminate the pay disparity between the sexes, which, if extrapolated over a 30-year career, would result in a shortfall of more than $350,000 for women.

All other factors remaining equal, the female researchers in the study would be expected to make $12,194 more per year if they were male. "This unexplained disparity accounted for 37.4% of the total observed difference by gender," the authors wrote.

They speculated about some of the reasons women are paid less than men, including the possible influence of parental status. Even women without children in the current study, however, were shortchanged.

It is also possible, the authors wrote, there are differences in values between men and women. Perhaps men place a greater value on pay and women place more emphasis on living in a more desirable area, even if it means taking a smaller salary, they suggested.

But the disparity could be explained, at least partly, by gender bias and discrimination, according to the authors.

"Numerous psychological studies suggest the existence of small yet meaningful gender biases, often unconscious, that may ultimately influence the outcomes of women's careers, including hiring, salaries, and promotions," they wrote. "These biases have been demonstrated to be particularly likely to be mobilized when women are mothers."

Jagsi and colleagues acknowledged that the study was limited by potential selection bias and the use of self-report for most of the measures, which could introduce recall bias.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Program and the University of Michigan Office of the Vice President for Research provided financial support for this work. One of the study authors was also supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research.

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